For school I had to read The Secret Garden! The book was amazing, but the movie was kinda lame…
The people who made the movie took out so many important parts of the whole story! The book was perfect, you could totally picture what the characters looked like or what was happening! The movie on the other hand took out so many scenes and important parts that the movie was only 45 minutes long! We watched the 1993 Movie version by the way. 🙁
To us, the book felt like a movie because my mom and I listened to part of it on an audio-book! We could picture the characters and scenery in our mind while listening. This book is so well written, not like most books I have read. What an amazing experience and a fun time we had together.
Here is The Secret Garden on Audio! I highly recommend it.
After listening to the book or reading it yourself, I suggest watching the movie. When you finish, let me know in the comments below which you think is better, the movie or the book.
Here are some of the differences I noticed between the movie and book! 🙂
1) The book said that Mary Lennox, one of the main characters in the story, looked ugly and yellow! In the movie she was quit tan, and wasn’t really ugly. They also killed her parents in the story differently.
Mary in the secret garden! 🙂
2) Also in the book they said Mary looked a lot better because she spent a lot of time outside in the sunshine and garden when she got to her uncle’s estate.
She was given a jump rope from Martha’s mother, Susan Sowerby. Ms. Sowerby was very poor, and had many children she struggled to feed, but used her last money to buy Mary the jump rope when she heard about Mary’s poor condition! This was a great example of generosity and also showed that sunshine and exercise were very important for physical and mental health. The movie said nothing about these important things.
3) Mary and Dickons met right away in the movie… But in the book it took a while until she met him, so there wasn’t much exciting anticipation in the movie.
4) Colin, Mary’s uncle’s son and her first cousin, had been ill and “dying” since he was born. He had been confined to his bed and room and did not even think he could walk. People around him talked about how he was dying and sick all the time behind his back, but he overheard them and believed them, which made him feel sicker and convinced him he was going to die or be a hunchback.
Here is Mary and Dickons taking Colin into The Secret Garden!
What Colin really needed was someone tough like Mary to help get him back on his feet and excited about life and playing in the sunshine and garden to get healthy and strong. He also needed to use the power of positive thinking to forget about the lies and negative energy from the people who had talked behind his back. The book talked about how important these things were and said they were better than what his doctor had been doing. This was not in the movie!!!
Here is a picture of Colin and Mary!
5) This book showed how close Colin, Dickons and Mary were and how they cared for each other when the going got tough. The movie on the other hand presented the characters as somewhat jealous, selfish and not practicing positive thinking and energy.
Here is a picture of Colin, Mary, and Dickons with his pet squirrel!
6) Martha, Mary’s servant’s mother Susan Sowerby and Dickons also provided Colin and Mary with extra nourishing foods and fresh raw milk with cream on top to help give them extra calories they were losing by working in the garden. Mary and Colin did not want the servants and cooks to know they were eating so much food as they were trying to keep it a secret that Colin was getting so much better. In the end they were able to surprise Mr. Craven, with the help of Ms. Sowerby, so their plan worked.
7) In the book, Mr. Craven stopped by Susan Sowerby’s home and gave her children playing in the front yard some money. This was an example of how when somebody gives things to other people to help them and they do not expect anything back, sometimes the universe pays you back anyway.
So overall, the movie took out so many important points and life lessons that you could barely recognize that it was anything like the book. However, the actors in the movie did a great job at acting, especially for kids.
You get the point, the movie in my opinion was lame, boring, and short! The book is a majestic piece of work! 😀
Hope you enjoyed my book report. See you next time!!! 🙂
– Jaclyn
